Features
The return of compassionate Conservatism
‘Has the Secretary of State, like me, managed to watch programmes such as Benefits Street and On Benefits & Proud?…
All the president’s women
Hollande’s affair demonstrates that the French are becoming more puritanical about monogamy
Home truths
Did Macmillan stitch up his succession – or did Iain Macleod’s famous Spectator piece, 50 years old this week, stitch up Macmillan?
The Mandela files
His long-lost prison manuscript sheds new light on the president’s politics, smoothed over in ‘Long Walk to Freedom’
American Night
All in the half-dark, we watch the dead playing the parts of the living, in roles we have seen before:…
Getting Nixon taped
Simpsons star Harry Shearer on what it takes to play the president
Snowden is no leftie
So why are British conservatives determined to ignore his revelations?
Amsterdam
‘What are people in your country saying about Holland these days?’ one Dutch friend recently asked me. I hadn’t the…
American Night
All in the half-dark, we watch the dead playing the parts of the living, in roles we have seen before:…
American Night
All in the half-dark, we watch the dead playing the parts of the living, in roles we have seen before:…
The fantasy Francis
Trendy commentators have fallen in love with a pope of their own invention
Time to Go
Feeling my age, too soon too tired, Whatever gifts I had no more required, I am a hireling called in…
Notes on a scandal
I was ten when the Profumo affair began at my home, Cliveden. Andrew Lloyd Webber has captured some of the story – but not all
Ship of fools
Eco-warriors stranded in the Antarctic! It’s too good to be true
Don’t blame sugar
Obesity isn’t a matter of addiction. It’s a question of self-control
Remembering Simon Hoggart, 1946–2014
I really can’t remember exactly how I came to appoint Simon Hoggart the wine correspondent of this magazine, but I…
Fast train to friendship
I had five decades of delight with the Everly Brothers – and it all began on the Flying Scotsman
The Navigators
The 2014 winner of The Spectator’s award for unconventional travel writing
Gardens for all seasons
Winter garden visiting is a solitary pastime, lending itself to the misanthrope, and is highly recommended. When it’s so cold…
Time to Go
Feeling my age, too soon too tired, Whatever gifts I had no more required, I am a hireling called in…
Time to Go
Feeling my age, too soon too tired, Whatever gifts I had no more required, I am a hireling called in…
Here come the Pirates!
The Eurocrats are crazy to dismiss all the new, diverse Eurosceptic parties as ‘far right’
Unpacking in Bangkok
And then a dozen Muddy miraculous hares Sprang out of the suitcase, Bounding round and round The hotel suite, Drumming…
Russia’s missing memorial
Why is there no gulag museum to compare with Yad Vashem?
Death of a salesman
A dying estate agent helped me to see the light
